The fourth Cross-strait students’ Panda Nursing Internship and experience camp and event kicked off at the Panda Valley recently. The event was co-sponsored by Sichuan Forestry and Grassland Administration, the Taiwan Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Sichuan Province and Taiwan-based Chinese Culture University and organized by Chengdu Administration on City Park Construction and Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Base. It is also co-organized by Panda Valley and iPanda. Mr. Jin Xiangdong, director of Exchange Division of Taiwan Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Sichuan Province and first-class researcher, presided over the event. Mr. Cai Jialin, director of Mainland Cooperation Department of the Chinese Culture University of Taiwan, Mr. Zhao Yu, deputy director of Taiwan Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Sichuan Province and Mr. Tan Hongming, deputy secretary of the General Party Branch of Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Base attended the event and each gave speech.

The Experience Camp attracted 32 students from 20 universities across the straits and from abroad. When they arrived at the Panda Valley, the students paid visit to the giant panda enclosure and the stocking area of lesser panda successively. Through the illustrations by the staff, the students understood a great deal of knowledge about the living habits and behavior of giant panda. The students later attended a special lecture on the National Panda Park at the Giant Panda Protection and Education Village. Teachers from Anzihe Natural Reserve also shared some anecdotes about animal protection and science popularization in work. The students benefited a lot and expressed their sincere gratitude to the millions of staff who engage in animal and plant protection quietly. Lastly, all participants attended the camp’s opening ceremony in the metasequoia forest of Panda Valley. The students exchanged gift at the ceremony and put on their own show, which puts a happy ending to the opening ceremony and beginning the journey of nursing event.

In the next two days, the students will go to the front line of panda breeding to have such experiences like preparing steamed corn bread for the giant pandas, cleaning the edible bamboo leaves for giant pandas and cleaning the giant panda enclosure, while making their contributions to the trade of giant panda protection.

This experience camp event is themed “Visiting Giant Panda, and Touring Sichuan”. There is hope that this event will give play to the role of Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Base as a platform for cross-straits exchange, bring closer the cross-straits relationship and the relationship between Sichuan and Taiwan through the giant panda, enhance the mutual understanding and friendship between cross-straits students and build up the identity of Taiwanese youths for the mainland. What we see during the visit to the panda is not only the endeavor made and result achieved by the motherland for giant panda protection and ecological protection, but also human being’s high degree of recognition on the aesthetic value, ecological value and cultural values against giant panda. Giant panda as the most highly-recognized Chinese unique ecological protection and cultural symbol in the world will pass on the hope of Chinese nation to devote in building a human destiny community to the world.